Film Crew In Peril novels

[dem]

You know the type. Camp director, bickering crew and back-biting actors with a vastly inflated opinion of their own talent, troop off to Transylvania or some other equally inadvisable location to shoot a horror film, get preyed upon by a centuries old vampire, etc. We've mentioned a number of short stories that fit the bill on the Imaginary Films thread, but only these novels come to mind. Ian Dear's Village Of Blood, Richard Tate's The Dead Travel Fast, Angus Hall's Devil Day (AKA Madhouse) and Peter Saxon's The Torturer. I'm almost certain there are more?

[Chuck_G]

I really enjoy these kind of stories, I'll have to look for some of the ones on your list. The one that comes to mind for me is 'Scream Queen' by Edo von Belcom. I also really like HR Wakefield's 'The Ghost Hunt' in Mammoth Book of Haunted House Stories, which is a radio show crew in peril story.

[dem]

In a new television reality show, six contestants "audition" for a part in a horror movie. Whoever lasts the night in a haunted house, rigged with special effects, walks away rich and famous. But the show's producers fail to check into the house's past - a past that never died.

thanks, blindcat, yet another one added to the wants list.

A couple more shorts;

Director Harry S. Skatsman, jnr. and his crew fall foul of Romania's favourite torture fiend in Brian Lumley's Zack Phalanx Is Vlad The Impaler (Mammoth Book Of Dracula).

Some horror novels should never be filmed and that proves to be the case with Sir Henry Sterling's Some Must Suffer in John Llewellyn Probert's most recent collection, Wicked Desires

Meanwhile, at the theatre, the cast and crew of The Fatal Choice are persecuted by ghosts in Margaret Tabor's The Understudy (struggling to finish it for some reason) and death stalks the Coulsden Am Dram Society in Caroline Graham's Midsomer Murders novel, Death Of A Hollow Man

[Johnlprobert]

Oct 28, 2010 19:35:47 GMT dem said:

Some horror novels should never be filmed and that proves to be the case with Sir Henry Sterling's Some Must Suffer in John Llewellyn Probert's most recent collection, Wicked Desires

It's Delights, Mr D( ), although that alternative title does have its appeal...

[dem]

beggin your pardon, yer worship! it's me carpet tiles. the lovely fumes from the industrial strength adhesive are getting to me ....

[andydecker]

There is Coppola´s Dracula by Kim Newman.

Here is a novel I bought and never read, I think.

William Schoell Bride of Satan is also a very interesting hollywood movie novel. I can´t find the copy right now; it merits it´s own thread. Schoell is an interesting mid-80s writer who wrote 8 novels for Leisure. I wanted to write about him for ages, never came to it.

As for the Hollywood Gothic there is Clive Barker´s Coldheart Canyon which isn´t half bad.

And for movie novels - okay, it is not horror, still - Theodore Roszak´s Flicker is still the best.

[dem]

Thanks Andy. Alwyn reviews Horror Show very favourably at Trash Fiction and it sounds just what i'm after. looks as if they had plenty fun dressing up for the cover photo's too, another sure sign of a literary classic.

not heard of William Shoell until now, but one of his fans has put together an unofficial site. The Bride of Satan cover is another class act! It's such a shame that Dorchester/ Leisure have dropped their mass market paperbacks in favour of an e-books only (?) operation.

[lemming13]

Pity nobody novelised Shadow of the Vampire...

[dem]

yes, Shadow Of The Vampire would have made for a good one. Not read it yet but Jim Shepard's Nosferatu In Love might be the next best thing.

[oatcakeredux]

In movies, don't forget the "Loughville" episode of The Monster Club. The film director is actually quite sympathetic, but he certainly gets more than he planned for on his ill-advisedly solo location recce...

[dem]

Thanks oatcake. somehow we've wound up with two threads for this - Imaginary Films/ Film Crews in Peril - but the Loughville story (the Humgoo) was overlooked until now. Chetwynd-Hayes has another FCIP story, Under The Skin in Terror By Night which might have been written with Amicus in mind - they are far away two of my very favourite RCH stories.

[Dr Strange]

Adam Nevill's latest, Last Days, is a film-crew-in-peril type story. It involves a couple of 'guerilla film makers' who are making a documentary about a cult that started up in 60s London and ended (unpleasantly) in an American desert. I am about a quarter of the way through and enjoying it a lot - lots of creepy stuff turning up on film footage and sound recordings, and some very scary 'presences' that seem to literally seep out of the walls of the buildings associated with the cult.

As an aside, it's also mentioned that these particular two documentary film makers also made Coven, which is about witchcraft at a Scottish university (a reference to Nevill's Banquet For The Damned), and Blood Frenzy, which is about the mysterious disappearance of some British hikers in Scandinavia (a refererence to his The Ritual).

I will attempt a proper review when I've finished it...

[Jojo Lapin X]

Aug 20, 2012 14:17:00 GMT Dr Strange said:

Adam Nevill's latest, Last Days

Carl Jung and his synchronicity strike again! Last week I noticed Amazon was desperately recommending books by Nevill, whom I had never heard of, to me. I also remember thinking there must be something suspect about a horror author, in particular a British one, who is never mentioned on Vault.

[ramseycampbell]

"I also remember thinking there must be something suspect about a horror author, in particular a British one, who is never mentioned on Vault."

Look again.

[Jojo Lapin X]

Aug 20, 2012 19:57:15 GMT ramseycampbell said:

Look again.

Nope, still nothing.